Making way for green spaces

Various projects in which Invest-NL is involved have revealed that financing the investments required of homeowners is one of the bottlenecks in making the built environment more sustainable. Through the study ‘Ruim baan voor Groene Ruimte’ (‘Making way for Green Spaces’) we have shown that the benefits of making a home more sustainable invariably exceed the costs, and also exceed the financing available on the basis of current mortgage standards and valuation methods. The latter slows down the sustainability process. It is time to review the normative and valuation frameworks and to adjust them in such a way that they provide scope for energy transition. Invest-NL calls upon valuers, estate agents, banks and other institutions involved in the regulations for valuers and banks to carry out such a review.